I wonder about the sexuality of food. I was eating canned
fruit salad. It was late morning, nearly noon, whatever. I had a headache. I
wanted to be a spoon, a fork, or the rim of a cup. I wanted to become a piece of
fruit actually, and be consumed. I was so hungry for contact. I would trade my
blood to be half a peach.
My eyes flicked to the rim of Kaoru’s cigarette. His mouth
was closed on the end and sucking the harsh smoke from it. Cigarettes are so
sexual, I thought, but in my sex crazed mind, everything was sexual.
I licked my lips and watched the tick-tick-tick of the clock
on the wall. I took another bite of the fruit bits lying in my spoon. It was so
typical. That is; this facsimile of a perfectly fine, lazy morning at the
breakfast table.
The scene was domestic. Two people sitting at a small table,
eating in silence to the chimes of the charm by the kitchen window. The distant
traffic somewhere below and little yellow flowers sitting in a glass. The scene
was oddly charming.
The sun had a soft glow; it wasn’t summer anymore. It was
autumn, refreshingly cool and breezy. The sun was dry and crisp with the
sharpness of dew, not heady and bold. I revelled in this warm. Domestic; it
smelled wonderful. It was also frightening, the silence just swallowing you
whole.
It was completely normal. Except, in the living room, there
was a man called Die snoring under a coffee table with blood red hair. Except,
in the bedroom, a vocalist called Kyo was tangled, tied and dead to the world.
“So . . . what was the purpose of this early morning drinking session?”
I blinked and opened my mouth, only to have my half-mashed
fruit salad fall out. “Ack! Sorry!”
It was all over his shirt. My clothes were rumpled in the trash.
Kaoru had been there when I woke and vomited. Vomit wasn’t sexual, I reminded
myself, just perverse. However, fruit was dripping with sex. He gave me a
cloth.
“It’s alright.” He said.
He was playing with his cigarette, tapping it on the side of
the ashtray. I found the little flicks charming somehow. Mundane but charming.
We were stupid really, groping at an empty barrel for safe things to say. Being
friends was different to doing things together; we usually chose the latter.
“You know, the purpose of getting exorbitantly drunk.” He
looked up and smiled, a little cruel and mocking in the curve of his lips. His
lips are so sensual . . . can’t you tell I’m so hungry?
I plastered an impish and embarrassed grin on my face, “Just
so . . . to get exorbitantly drunk.”
He nodded and flicked his cigarette again, looking at the
table. I tried not to look at the cigarette in his hand or his lips. I tried to
concentrate on my sexual bowl of fruit salad.
“What was all that stuff about breast implants and a girl
and her mother?”
“What? When did I say that! I didn’t say that! You’re
lying!”
“Last night, and I am not lying.”
“Oh . . .” I smiled, the creeping heatwaves upon me. “Don’t
mind me, I go all demented sometimes. Alcohol does that.”
He signed and picked up his shoes, putting them on the table
with their cardboard box. “Do you still want to be friends with my shoe laces?”
“Friends? Shoe laces? Sorry!?”
“Yes, you said that they were pretty and you wanted to take
them home.”
I smiled, going crimson. “Um, sure. Hi there Mr. Black Shoe
Laces.”
He put them back in with a straight face. He started
laughing at me, and I sat there feeling incredibly stupid. Note to self – do
not get drunk in front of Kaoru; he makes you feel like an one inch insect next
to an African elephant.
“So why my place?”
“Why what your place?”
He signed, “Are you going to repeat everything I say?”
I shrugged, “Am I? Don’t know, depends on what you say.”
I smirked and he mumbled under his breath; it was about
biting off fingers and what a pity bassists needed them. The advantages of
being in a band and his band was never clearer.
“Why did you guys end up at my place?”
“Um . . . you’re responsible and I was looking for you to
drive us home? Shinya’s a bit of a freak and would have called the police
instead of letting us in even though we went out together?”
He just continued smoking, acknowledging my words with a nod
and a small grin.
“There was a storm last night?” I asked.
“How do you know? I thought you were drunk.”
I turned my gaze to the sunny window, “The trees outside are
wet, and the . . . smell.”
Kaoru frowned; I guess he didn’t understand what I meant.
“The . . . smell?”
“The smell of autumn . . . the smell of wet leaves . . .
dead leaves.”
He smiled, “That doesn’t sound like you at all. I would have
thought you’d be concerned with your expensive bed sheets and the bedroom
window you left open.”
Is that how people view me? I’m a human being, as detailed
and complex as the genetic code written on my skin, hair and saliva. It’s in my
sweat too . . .
I crossed my arms, my lips a thin straight line. “I’m not vapid.”
Kaoru was surprised, “I’m . . . sorry. I don’t mean
anything.”
“It’s okay, I know you didn’t . . . I just wish . . .”
The potted trees outside on the balcony could be seen
through the kitchen window. They swayed ever so softly with some unseen breeze,
the force of which tickled the leaves and roused them from their dormant state.
I like to watch trees. They knew what they wanted, they knew who they were,
they knew their destiny; they were stable and reliable.
“What? What do you wish?”
“That life wasn’t like this . . . that . . . that the end
didn’t come . . . there was a fish pond I could fish at . . . that the clichés
maybe were true . . . just everything. That I was a tree; I don’t know . . .”
He started coughing. Tea he had drunk came out of his mouth.
I threw him a napkin. He nodded his thanks. When he wasn’t quite so red, he
tapped his fingers on the table.
“You sound . . . strange, and that’s a compliment. You want
to be a tree? Clichés? The end? Are you sure you’re okay? You sound . . . off,
Toshiya.”
I signed, my tone sarcastic. “Yes, I’m fine, Mr. Doctor. I’m
allowed to have thoughts deeper than ‘wow, I like that lipstick shade’ once in
a while you know.”
“Yes, but you should warn a man before you drop such a
revelation.”
He was so smug; I picked up a pear and threw it at his head.
He caught it neatly.
“Oh, shut up. Besides, I was like before, wasn’t I?”
“Were you?”
“Yes, I was. I even answer in an interview that I was sad
everyday.” I rolled my eyes, “Not that ANYONE bothered to pay attention to that
little comment.”
“Um, I wasn’t paying attention then. Either way, Toshiya,
try not to get too morbid. You’ve got plenty of time to have fun, but even so,
don’t waste it.”
I looked at the leaves that drifted across his window;
falling down and crumbling.
“I like having fun, I do, but you’re wrong about time. Time
is evil.”
His brows furrowed as he smiled, “This is the new Toshiya?
Toshiya with a chemical imbalance? Please warn me before you turn up at
practice; I don’t want anyone to have a heart attack. It’s hard enough with Kyo
and his little arcane habits.”
I picked up my spoon. I dipped into the bowl and picked up
some fruit. I flicked it on him. He swore softly and grabbed a cloth.
“Chemical IMBALANCE? What the hell are you going on
about? Are you insulting my mental health? I’m FINE, thank you very much. This
IS the ‘normal’ me, you . . .” I couldn’t think of an appropriate insult, “–
blood type A person! I’m pessimistic! Do you understand Japanese? I’m fine,
okay!”
“OKAY! I get the message; you’re loud enough. Why so
depressing, Toshiya?”
“It’s the moon, the weather, the season; it is everything.”
I was annoyed. “I thought I just told you it was normal!”
“Okay, okay! I get the message! I can’t believe this . . .”
He leaned on his elbows and watched my expressions. I looked
up at him.
“Take care of yourself, and don’t do anything stupid;
contact me first, okay. You are under a contract, which means your body is
under a contract; that means to stay intact. Got it?”
Why does he keep bringing the contract business up? What did
he think I was going to do? Throw myself in front of a bus? If I wanted to die,
I’d hire Kyo for his expert advice, not copy some crappy American teenage angst
flick. Even jumping off a building is better.
I looked down at my bowl of fruit salad dripping with sex,
“Yeah . . . yeah, whatever. Don’t put it that way; I might just do it just for
the sake of it.”
He shook his head and muttered something about getting out
of the rebellious spirit of the teenage years. I went back to my salad. Now
that I think about it, the peach and the pear are really sexual fruits. The
peach so round and sumptuous, texture juicy and smooth, the flesh soft but
firm. But the charm was the curve down one side. Both pear and peach are
reminiscent of the human form.
‘Take the peach, darling.’ She offered a perfect ripe fruit.
Her hand was warm and smooth as she pressed the peach into
my palm. The fruit was round and generous, with a luscious curve down one side.
Yellow, orange and pale pink. I pressed it to my face and sniffed at its sweet
fragrance.
‘Why are you always giving me peaches?’
‘My mother always told me the peach is the ancient fruit of
love and happiness.’
Die crawled in looking for aspirin.
I looked at the can of fruit salad in the disposal. ‘Fruit
Salad with extra Peach and Pear pieces.’ I looked down at my spoonful of fruit
and signed. Why did Kaoru have this in his cupboard?
I stole his cigarettes in revenge.
+
“He sounded a lot like you. He always has . . . I just
didn’t . . . notice . . .”
The flash and gleam of the opening and closing doors of the
cars downstairs, far below from this place he was. And he couldn’t stop
thinking of how Toshiya sounded. The strange and pure language he could speak
to him, almost as if his mother-tongue.
“Did he? Maybe he is me. Maybe I’m him.”
He pressed his palm to the invisible barrier. The visible
shift in light and sound; the length, the speed and the direction of the waves
shifted and altered just as they touch the surface of this invisible barrier.
Glass house in which he lived.
“Don’t be stupid. He’s not you. Toshiya is not you. How can
he be?”
“But you don’t know who I am, K. You’ve never seen my face,
so don’t assume. You’re impossible when you’re in a mood like this!” Ame sat
down on the floor, “Maybe he is, have you thought about that? Don’t tell me
you’re afraid of meeting me again? Wouldn’t you like to speak to me, for real?
For a minute? A second?”
“Yes . . . yes, I would love to . . .”
“Then don’t stop, eh Kaoru? Don’t stop looking for me. Um .
. . so how did you meet him?”
He brushed the frost away and sat down on the park bench.
The daily movements of people, the groups of them swamping this area and that
place, this shop and that intersection. The bobbing heads, up down up down and
again till he was sick from the tide.
Rather like apples, he thought.
A still and floating figure in the crowd, away from the noise
and the click-click-click of shoes on the cement. The crackling of leaves, and
the mists of wind through trees around the body. That was Toshiya the first
time he saw him.
Toshiya in his black jeans, his coat, walking slowly among a
crowd that moved a beat faster. Such plain clothing, but his face was set and
the jewelled face was something to be reckoned with. His crimson scarf
fluttered out behind him. A deck of colour in a pale world. Bedazzled by the
ivory, by the pearly tones and the sleek polished lines.
Toshiya was on a different plane, a higher plane where there
was silence, where time did not exist, where events were encaged in little
capsules of amber. He was staring at the sky and not at all mindful of anything
else; his neck didn’t seem to bend enough for his appreciation. Eyes that
followed the birds swooping and twisting.
The searing blueness above him, the sea of the air. The elevated watery world. Diluted.
So still and beautiful in poise, he followed that figure for
a minute with his eyes, and when legs took Toshiya elsewhere, he followed. The
minute became ten, as did ten minutes become an hour, as did an hour become
two. He followed him the whole day, so curious. Learning the strikes, the
touches, the looks and the smell.
But he had forgotten that curiosity with the band break ups
and reformation; Toshiya’s kidnapping and addition into their little pack of
insanity. Toshiya was quiet and yet loud. Just everything . . . strange how he
forgets, just as he forgets what the rain feels like. Once in a while, he stood
outside to be soaked.
Time can stop when one stays still, stands silently and
watch the world pass him by. Toshiya had his headphones on, staring at the sky
– blue diamonds for eyes, transmuted by the flight of birds above him; little
tiny birds whose plight enthralled him.
“Is that how you met him?” Ame smiled, “How wonderful . . .
unusual but nice.”
Kaoru made sure Die and he didn’t bring an umbrella. He made
sure that Toshiya and his little group were there that day. Die turned up
soaking wet. Toshiya opened the door and let him in. Kaoru followed Die, using
him as protection.
+
I got home from Kaoru’s apartment on Saturday and just drummed my fingers on the kitchen table till my eyes were too heavy. Then I slept and slept and slept till the dawning of a new day, throwing out my disposable once-use self and picking a new self out of the stash under my pillow.
Arna.